Urbanism Under Sail: An Archaeology of Fluit Ships in Early Modern Everyday Life

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Urbanism Under Sail

Niklas Eriksson

An archaeology of fluit ships in early modern everyday life

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Urbanism Under Sail

Niklas Eriksson

An archaeology of ﬂuit ships in early modern everyday life

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©Niklas Eriksson

Södertörn University SE-141 89 Huddinge

Cover Images: based on sketches by Niklas Eriksson Cover Design: Jonathan Robson

Layout: Per Lindblom & Jonathan Robson Printed by Elanders, Stockholm 2014

Södertörn Doctoral Dissertations 95 ISSN 1652-7399

Södertörn Archaeological Studies 10 ISSN 1652-2559

ISBN 978-91-87843-02-0 ISBN 978-91-87843-03-7 (digital)

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Abstract

In the seventeenth- and early eighteenth centuries, fluits were the most common type of merchant ship used in Baltic trade. Originally a Dutch design, the majority of all goods transported between Sweden and the Republic was carried on board such vessels. Far from all voyages reached their destination. Down in the cold brackish water of the Baltic, the preservation conditions are optimal, and several of these unfortunate vessels remain nearly intact today.

Although thousands of more or less identical fluits were built, surprisingly little is known about the arrangement of space on board, their sculptural embellishment and other aspects that formed the physical component of everyday life on and alongside these ships. Fluits were a fixture in early modern society, so numerous that they became almost invisible. The study of wrecks thus holds great potential for revealing vital components of early modern life. Inspired by phenomenological approaches in archaeology, this thesis aims to focus on the lived experience of fluits. It sets out to grasp for seemingly mundane everyday activities relating to these ships, from the physical arrangements for eating, sleeping and answering nature’s call, to their rearrangement for naval use, and ends with a consideration of the architectonical contribution of the fluit to the urban landscape.

Keywords: Seventeenth century, Urbanism, Shipwrecks, Historical Archaeology, Buildings Archaeology, Nautical Archaeology, Sweden, the Netherlands, Fluit

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Acknowledgments

Above all, it has been great fun writing this thesis. Numerous people, companies, institutions, museums and so on have contributed to this positive experience. First of all I wish to thank my supervisor, Johan Rönnby, for his great support, not only with this thesis, but also for always offering the opportunity to join and participate in different projects. I also wish to thank my second supervisor, Anders Andrén, for valuable comments on the manuscript and suggestions for relevant literature.

Many people have been involved in the archaeological surveys that laid the foundation for this study. I therefore wish to thank all my colleges at the Unit for Archaeology at the Swedish National Maritime Museum, in particular Trevor Draeske, Mikael Fredholm, Jim Hansson, Patrik Höglund, Jens Lindström and Eduardo Roa Brynhildsen, for excellent cooperation at the ‘Jutholmen Wreck’ as well as on the Anna Maria sites in Dalarö. Thanks also go to Anders Backström and Markus Hårde, who both discovered the ‘Lion Wreck’and surveyed it with me, Jonas Rydin and Tommy Hallberg.

This dissertation would have looked very different if Johan Rönnby had not invited me to participate in the ‘Ghost Ship’ project. It was a cooperative endeavour carried out by MARIS, The Vasa Museum and the two companies, Deep Sea Productions and Marin Mätteknik. Many people have thus contributed to the project, but in particular I would like to acknowledge Malcolm Dixelius, Carl Douglas, Björn Hagberg, Joakim Holmlund, Fred Hocker, Ola Oscarsson and Martin Widman.

Archaeological fieldwork is something you learn by doing. Through the years I have had the opportunity to work with Jonathan Adams and Harry Alopaeus, from whom I have learned a lot about wreck-recording.

Harry’s words of wisdom – that ‘every wreck has its own method’ – have been running through my head while writing this book, especially while finishing chapter 3.

Of course this thesis was not written out at sea or underwater, but within the solid walls of Södertörn University. I definitely must express my gratitude to The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies for

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financing my project. Great support including navigating all the prac- ticalities has been provided by the administrative staff at the Baltic and East European Graduate School (BEEGS) and later at the Institution for History and Contemporary Studies. Not least, Jorid Palm has done a fantastic job with the necessary paperwork.

I am very grateful for all the feedback on drafts of the manuscript. In addition to my supervisors, Anna Mc Williams, Patrik Höglund and Oscar Törnqvist have read and commented. I also want to thank Kerstin Cassel for delivering some really important notes and observations at the final seminar. The book has greatly benefited from these. I also appreci- ated the discussions with the abovementioned colleagues, as well as Björn Nilsson and Hans Bolin and others at seminars, in corridors and while indulging in breaded fish at Matmakarna. Thanks also to Ingvar Sjöblom for helping me with the archive material concerning the Constantia.

I also want to thank those anonymous peer reviewers for commenting on papers related to this thesis. These have sometimes been positive, but sometimes also very negative and harsh. Irrespective of which, I have learnt a lot from these, not least how delicate the relationship can sometimes be between archaeology, history and historical archaeology. I would also like to thank Leos Müller for taking his time and offering an historian’s view on these matters.

Kristin Bornholdt Collins deserves to be acknowledged for a fantastic job with the language. In the same way, I wish to thank Per Lindblom, Jonathan Robson and everyone else involved at the library for turning the manuscript into a book.

Special thanks go to my wife, Mirja Arnshav, for continuous discussions, comments on texts and general encouragement along the way, which has been of invaluable help. Finally, I thank my kids – Astrid, Torun and Ivar – for constantly reminding me that there are more important things in life than old, half-rotten ships.

Flemingsberg, 5 August 2014.

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1. Introduction

Shipbuilders, skippers and other curious people, from near and from far, travelled to Hoorn in Nord Holland to look at the new ship. A prominent merchant, Pieter Janszoon Liorne, had turned his view of the ideal merchant vessel into reality. According to D. Velius, the city’s chronicler, it had resulted in a ‘crazy and unusual design’. For instance the length-to- beam ratio of Liorne’s new ship, was 4:1, which was considered exceptionally long in 1595 when it all took place (De Vries &Van Der Woude 1997:357, Hoving 1995:47f, Hoving & Emke 2000:34, Ketting 2006:9–13, Unger 1978:36ff, 1994:121, Wegener 2003:20).

This popular and often cited account regarding the ‘invention’ of the fluit portrays its introduction as if it were a sudden ‘flash of genius’. Most writers on the matter agree that the development of the type had a much longer prelude, and was in fact the result of gradual improvements over time. Irrespective of its validity the account clearly reveals that by the end of the sixteenth century there existed a ship type called a fluit, which had some specific characteristics.

Seen from the side a fluit looks just like any old three-masted sailing ship. The mainmast and the foremast have square sails and the aftermost mizzenmast has a triangular lateen-sail occasionally supplemented with some smaller sails on the bowsprit and mizzenmast.

The particularities of the hull of a fluit’s hull become apparent when seen from above or from astern. From above the outline of the hull appears as a rectangle box with slightly rounded corners. Seen in cross section the sides of the hull slope inwards, so-called ‘tumble-home’, which result in very narrow upper works. The rounded lower parts of the stern are crowned by a narrow flat transom, giving it a pronounced pear-shape (Fig. 1.1). It might be that this shape, which stern-on gave the impression that the after works looked something like a thinly shaped glass, a flute, is the origin of the name (Unger 1992:121). Others have argued that the name, which is spelled fluit or fluyt is related to the English word fluid (which is related to flow), meaning ‘floating’ (Cederlund 1988:45–55). The English used the word flyboats (Barbour 1930:279f). Below I have decided

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U R B A N I S M U N D E R S A I L – E R I K S S O N

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to spell it fluit, simply because this is a frequently used and universally accepted spelling.

Figure 1.1: Fluits depicted from three angles in Nicolaes Witsen’s treatise on shipbuilding, the 1690 edition (after Cederlund 1982b:36).

It is sometimes argued that the hull-shape, with the prominent ‘tumble- home’ and the narrow deck, was a response to the Sound Toll (cf. Hoving 1995:47, De Vries & Van Der Woude 1997:357), which was calculated on the basis of the breadth of the upper deck. There are however several other reasons for building a hull with this shape. Keeping the centre of gravity low is perhaps the most obvious. The idea that the hull shape of the fluit was adjusted to cut costs probably derives from the general reputation of the Dutch merchants at the time. Creating a ship type that kept costs to a minimum becomes just another way to confirm their superiority and skill when it came to making profit. There are several reasons to return to these ideas in the following chapters.

The fluit was a total success. From the end of the sixteenth century to the mid eighteenth century fluits were amongst the most common type of merchant vessels in Northern Europe and the Baltic Sea. They were easy and cheap to build thanks to standardization of design as well as a technological improvements, such as the sawmill (Unger 1978:7). Another important advantage of the type was that it could be sailed and operated with proportionally small crews. While a fluit might be handled by twelve or thirteen men, another ship of similar size could not be managed with fewer than seventeen (Kirby & Hinkkanen 2000:189, Lucassen & Unger 2011:3–44, for discussion regarding ton-to-man ratio, see Van Tielhof &

Van Zanden 2011:49, Van Zanden & Van Tielhof 2009:289–403).

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1 . I N T R O D U C T I O N

The fluit was a ‘multi-purpose’ vessel, a ship that with slight adjustments could meet a wide range of demands. Even if the term embraces a range of ships which share some important characteristics, there are variations with important differences. The size of fluits varied considerably. The smallest versions, sometimes referred to as the boot, were 86 feet at most (around 24 m), whereas the largest versions were 140 feet (just over 39 m) (Hoving 1995:49) and larger. Others claim that a fluit could be as short as 78 feet (around 21.8 m) (Cederlund 1983:33).

Variations of the basic concept did not only affect the size, but included some special features connected to the trades in which these ships were used. A lengthened version, dubbed Noortsvaarders, was developed with orts in the bow and stern for loading long beams and timbers; and there was also the Ostervaarders, especially designed for the shallow harbours of the Baltic Sea (Cederlund 1983:33ff, 1995:68ff). Other

‘specials’ were the Spaensvaerder and the Straetsvaerder, so called because they were used in the trade with Portugal or Spain and the Mediterranean (through the straits). From the exterior, they differed from the other varieties through the beakhead (Hoving 1995:49f, Unger 1992:126ff). The Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC, (United East India Com- pany), employed a number of fluits (see overview in Ketting 2006). Fluits were also used as whalers which are easy to distinguish in depictions as they have davits on the sides for lifting whaling boats.

There are also a number of ships which are very similar but which are not always labelled as fluits. The katschip for instance was a cheaper version of the fluit, with a shallower draught and a simplified rig (Cederlund 1995:68, Hoving 1995:51f, Ketting 2006:100ff). The versions of the fluit mentioned above were relatively lightly armed and most often they did not carry guns at all, which was one of the prerequisites for having a small crew. According to Richard Unger, ‘(t)he lightly built fluyt was of little use in war. It was almost defenseless and when fluits carried guns the complement was small. In wartime, rather than build stronger merchant ships, the Dutch resorted to convoys’ (Unger 1978:38, 2011:257).

A common expression within the navy was that ships were armed ‘en flute’. This means that most guns were removed in order to clear deck- space, for example to transport troops. Some fluits however, were really heavily armed, with a number of gunports along the hull side. These fluits sailed along the specialized warships in several European navies, from the

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French to the Swedish (Lavery 1992:111ff, Unger 1992:122, 2011:257). In Sweden merchant vessels were entitled to a reduction in customs rates if they could be used by the navy in wartime (Ahlström 1997:103–104, Glete 2010:434ff). This is something we have reason to return to in chapter 7.

Sources that describe fluits

Accounts that describe fluits with any detail or accuracy are remarkably few, particularly considering the vast quantity of ships built. They appear to have been so numerous that they became almost invisible. Construc- tional drawings of fluits have never existed as these ships were designed and built by rule of thumb and through copying previously built ships.

The reason for this was the inability to theoretically calculate and to predict the qualities and sailing performance in beforehand. The ‘same ship’ was built repeatedly, over and over again, but in different sizes. This of course was a coincidence that obstructed elaboration and development of new designs (Hoving 2012:15ff, Landström 1980).

The few drawings that have survived up to our time were produced for the basis of discussion or as illustrations to literature (Witsen 1979:160ff, Rålamb 1943: 25, plate G.). In the Scheepwartsmuseum in Amsterdam there is a preserved seventeenth-century drawing of a fluit, signed F. C.

Keyzer. Of particular interest on this drawing is the presence of five different scale bars, meaning that the drawing could be used to describe fluits in five different sizes – from 90 to 130 feet (Hoving 1995:48, Hoving

& Emke 2000:45).

To the depictions one should also add models. Slightly more than a handful of contemporary models of fluits and associated types have survived. How representative these models are, when compared to the real thing, may of course be questioned (Hoving & Emke 2000:49, Hoving 2005:17ff, Petrejus 1967:81ff). The majority of the votive ships that are preserved from the seventeenth century are generally correct regarding details, whereas the proportions are naive. There are a few fluits among these votive ships, which I will return to in chapter 7.

But neither drawings nor models provide any thorough account on how the interiors of these ships were arranged. The few preserved drawings commonly reveal the location of bulkheads and deck levels, but they do not reveal what facilities were installed in these rooms, how the fluit functioned as lodging for the people aboard and what they were

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doing in there. Fluits are often present in depictions of seventeenth- century urban harbour views, as well as in the background of dramatic sea battle scenes. They are easily identified by their characteristic pear-shaped stern. But, as noted by Ab Hoving, fluits are ‘seldom portrayed with the loving attention to detail expended on men-of-war or East Indianmen’

(1995:47).

The Mother of all Trades

In the seventeenth century the Dutch Republic was Sweden’s main trading partner. The Baltic trade was referred to as the Moedernegotie (the Mother of all Trades) (Noldus 2005: 8, Fahlborg 1923:206, van Tielhof 2002). The Dutch dominance is illustrated through the fact that the English, the competing economic superpower, regarded the Baltic as ‘the lost trades’ (Barbour 1930: 267). Fluits formed the tool in the story of economic success in the period later known as De Gouden Eeuw (the Golden Age) of the Dutch Republic and stormaktstiden (the Swedish Empire) in Sweden. In fact, the economic growth during the period is sometimes explained through the ‘invention’ of this very ship type (Hansson 2002:216–218, Hoving & Emke 2000:35, van Royen 1992:153, Van Zanden & Van Tielhof 2009:389–403).

The cooperation between Sweden and the Dutch Republic relied on mutual dependency. The Swedish territory stretched over a huge landmass, nearly surrounding the Baltic Sea, and consisted of sparsely populated districts and countries conquered by war. The economy relied on the export of raw materials such as iron, tar and copper. The Dutch Republic consisted of a small, densely populated area with an economy relying on massive foreign trade and of colonies. Raw material was exported to the Republic, while finished products and skilled labour and know-how were brought back (Fahlborg 1923: 205–281, Fahlström 1947, Noldus, 2002:14, 2005, Müller 1998, van Zanden and van Tielhof, 2009:

389–403). The shipbuilding industry was typical of this co-operation.

Wood, iron and tar were exported to the Low Countries, where these products were turned into ships. In return, ships or shipbuilders were imported to the Baltic area.

But the Dutch influence on Swedish society was much more profound than that. The art, architecture and clothing styles, indeed taste in general, that arrived in Sweden, either through production skills or finished

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products, are all quite revealing. The influence was also of a more ideological or cultural character. The Dutch merchants, the burghers of cities like Amsterdam, Enkhuisen, or Lieden, were a powerful and influential force in their home country as well as overseas. During the course of the seventeenth century their wealth alongside their societal influence increased considerably in Sweden too. The term ‘Skeppsbro nobility’, which derives from the name of the main quay for merchant ships in Stockholm, is used to define these merchants, who had grown prosperous from trade. Many of these were Dutch immigrants. The influence of Dutch attitudes towards trade and commerce in Swedish society was not unproblematic as it progressed down a collision course with the ideology of Swedish estate society. Not least, the Swedish aristocracy was for instance very anti-mercantile in the early seventeenth century (cf. Englund 1989, Noldus 2004:7ff, Stadin 2009:421, Nováky 1993:215ff). The vast majority of goods, commodities, ideas, people, competence and so on, everything that moved in between these two countries, travelled aboard fluits.

Aim of thesis

The Swedish and Dutch relationships during the period, the Dutch dominance in the Baltic trade, the Swedish raw material export, the emergence of nascent capitalism, the Dutch influence on Swedish society in the seventeenth century, the Dutch engagement in the conflicts that threatened the Baltic trade and so on, are all quite familiar stories, which have been told by writers from various academic disciplines in the past (for example see Fahlborg 1923, Fahlström 1947, Heckscher 1940, Müller 1998, Noldus 2002, 2005, Van Tielhof 2002, Van Tielhof & Van Zanden 2011, Van Zanden & Van Tielhof 2009, Unger 2011).

Besides its economic significance the fluit has achieved a great deal of attention from authors, model builders and ship-enthusiasts in general. Thus, there are several texts that perfectly fulfil the objective to describe the development and history of this iconic ship type (see for instance Emke 2001, 2004, Hoving 1995:34–54, Hoving & Emke 2000, Ketting 2006, Landström 1961:154, Lavery 1992:106–115, Unger 1978, 1994, van Beylen 1970:101–109, Wegener 2003). There is no need to repeat it all here.

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Several archaeologists and others have thoroughly discussed different techniques employed in seventeenth-century Dutch shipbuilding, including fluits and associated old ship types (cf. Cederlund 1988:45–55, 1995, Hoving 2012, Lemeé 2006, Maarleveld 1994:153–163, 2013:348–

357). Hence there exists what one may refer to as a ‘grand narrative’ of this type of vessel, including how they were built and the trade in which they were used. The question, then, is what else is there to add?

Figure 1.2: An illustration showing the Teredo Navalis, commonly referred to as the shipworm, and what it does to wood (after Baumhauer 1878).

It goes without saying that all of the thousands of voyages that were made on the Baltic Sea did not reach their aimed for destination. Regardless of whether the foundering was due to storms, navigational failings, rotten planking, icing or anything else, a certain number of fluits have ended up at the bottom of the sea. Down in this dusky cold environment, the conditions for preservation are optimal. The shipworm (Fig. 1.2), which can erase an entire wooden ship in a few years, cannot survive in this

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environment due to low salinity. As a consequence many of the fluits, and a lot of other unfortunate vessels, still remain intact at the seafloor after hundreds of years.

The aim of this thesis is to develop a new approach to studying well- preserved wrecks, like the ones found in the Baltic Sea. Through the coincidence that in some cases these can be reconstructed to more or less complete buildings, they can also be analysed as such. Inspired by archaeology, which asserts and studies use, everyday life and practice in buildings and houses, I wish to show that such approaches also are valid on board ships.

Through examining a number of wrecked fluits I wish to show that these can be used to highlight aspects which are not accessible through other sources. Wrecks can also provide insights, nuances and new perspectives on relatively familiar historical episodes. They can also be used to refine and correct some errors in previous assumptions.

It has been recognized for quite some time (see chapter 2) that conditions for preservation in the Baltic are uniquely favourable, a fact often cited by journalists, divers, museum professionals, cultural heritage bureaucrats, academics and others. This being so, it is quite remarkable how little archaeological research that has been carried out using these well-preserved shipwrecks. Despite claims of maritime archaeologists being obsessed with shipwrecks (Flatman 2003:143–157, Ransley 2005:621–629) the effort put into recording and trying to understand the still standing hulls of the Baltic Sea has been negligible.

In most cases the names of these vessels, their crews, where they were heading, what happened as they sank and so on has been long forgotten.

When the wrecks are rediscovered on the seafloor, they are large, manifest, well-preserved, more or less complete, buildings from a period traditionally highlighted by historians.

This thesis does not set out to explain these seemingly silent physical remains through reading written accounts. There are definitely compe- tent historians more suited for such tasks. As will be described in more detail in chapter 2, when archaeology is applied to periods where written sources are available it sometimes has a tendency of becoming an expensive way of repeating what the historians already knew (cf. Andrén 1997:13, 1998:3, citing Peter Sawyer).

Instead this study springs from the conviction that material culture, things, like for instance ships, has the capacity to contribute with a

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dimension to our understanding of human life and experience which is not directly accessible in documents. Such recognition may be argued to run along a general trend within the humanities to ‘return to things’ (cf.

Hicks & Beadry 2010, Knappet & Malafouris 2008, Latour 2005, Trentmann 2009:283–307) and archaeology may be argued to be ‘The discipline of Things’ par excellance (Olsen et al. 2012, Olsen 2010).

Being-in-the-world involves an immediate engagement with things.

Things ‘sneak upon us’ and become so integrated in our lives that we often don not even recognize their existence. Hence, the things that have greatest impact upon us are the ones we probably are not aware of. The fluit, the most common merchant ship on the Baltic Sea, the workhorse in the ’Mother Trade’, the everyday setting for thousands of sailors and a self-evident feature in any North European harbour city, definitely was one of the fundamental components in the formation of seventeenth and early eighteenth-century society. They were crucial, but at the same time mundane, aspects of this society; components that have been long forgotten and lost in the mists of time. They were so common that they were essentially taken for granted; they were ubiquitous. Nobody found it necessary to waste time and effort describing them.

Even if shipwrecks form the departure point, this thesis does not set out to make a detailed account of how these ships were built or their sailing performance, which are common research topics within the archaeology of ships (see chapter 2). Instead, this study studies these ships as representing humanized space. The space where all those trivial, more or less unconscious, actions of everyday life took place. The reconstructed ship allows us to ‘go aboard’ and experience the vessel as a setting for all those activities that form the everyday.

Thanks to the ideal conditions for preservation in the Baltic Sea, several of these ships have the capacity to bring aspects of everyday life of the past into the present. Beginning with a discussion on human life and its everyday entanglement with things, chapter 3 deals with some con- siderations on how to transform the remains at the seabed into a format suitable for archaeological analysis. As it is never possible to record it all, the chapter aims to sort out what aspects of the wreck are needed in order to utilize the source for discussions concerning the lived experience of ships. Surveying, recording and reconstructing wrecks is here undertaken with the objective to recreate everyday human environments.

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Taking four surveyed wrecks as its material evidence, chapter 4 aims to reconstruct the everyday environment on board fluits. The focus is on the location of decks, bulkheads, windows, ports, hatches and similar physical structures that define rooms and direct human action. Besides reconstructing these rooms, the chapter also sets out to discuss what features were present and what kinds of activities were carried out in them. It also consders where people were lodged, where they ate, and so on. In this account it is necessary to review a few earlier statements and interpret- ations of spatial arrangements on board these ships. More information such as drawings, photos, measurements and other descriptions exist concerning the wrecks covered in this chapter. However, as these details have been published in reports and papers elsewhere, which are referred to in the text, there is no attempt to present a full catalogue to accompany this section of the study.

In order to reach a more thorough understanding of everyday life aboard fluits it is necessary to add action to the reconstructed vessels. It is argued that humans always have some sort of spatial consciousness. Being in a ship, or any other environment for that matter, is always a matter of submitting to the conditions set by the surrounding world. The wrecks provide an opportunity to discuss working, eating, sleeping and visiting the vital seat, the more or less unconscious rituals of the everyday. What kind of life is revealed from these reconstructed ships? Or, to put it slightly differently: what kind of human life could be lived inside these ships? The aim of chapter 5 is thus not just to discuss what people did with fluits, but even more importantly: what fluits made people do.

Besides fulfilling the perhaps quite obvious and familiar tasks such as transporting goods and people, a ship holds together its crew, directs their movement patterns and controls their interaction and upholds a social order. The fully working ship consists of hull, rig, provisions, crew, and a whole lot of other actors that together form a functioning unit that may be described as a network of human and non-human actors (Law 2000).

Through their interaction they constantly reproduce the fully working ship. In its moored form the fluit becomes a part of the urban environ- ment, whereas conditions on board the sailing ship differ. When ships are moored they are part of the town, together with houses, churches, streets, quays and so forth. The network around a fluit reshapes and the ship works in a way that differs from the ‘same’ ship when it sails.

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As argued in the chapters 4 and 5, the spatial arrangement as revealed from wrecks differs from how fluits have been reconstructed before. But they also reveal a picture of a social environment that differs in several ways from the hierarchical structures on board naval ships. Chapter 6 aims to highlight this further through discussing the means that were taken when transforming a merchant fluit into a fully-fledged naval ship.

Together with the greater number of people and guns that embark comes abstract notions such as hierarchy and duty. These become evident through a discussion drawn from the lived experience of a ship trans- formed for war service. All on board have to be arranged and held together to transform into a lethal unit, the warship. The purpose of the interior of the naval fluit is partly to make people behave in ways, and carry out acts, that they perhaps do not want to.

Fluits, together with many other objects, materialize the urban merchant’s culture of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. But in contrast to other forms of architecture, like the famous Dutch ‘hals- gevel’ (neck gable) house, fluits are mobile architectural units. Chapter 7 focuses on the exterior of fluits, and highlights the appearance of these ships. The discussion concerns the kinds of sculptures these ships carried and what they mean. The analysis then continues with an attempt to place these ships in an urban setting in order to discern what insights the awareness of the sculptural messages expressed in the exteriors of fluits adds to our understanding of the early modern urban landscape. Fluits set sail and move between different ports, clearly signalling the specific ideology and attitudes towards trade for which the Dutch had become famous (cf. Schama 1988, Weber 1978).

During the seventeenth century the attitudes towards commerce and trade changed thoroughly in Swedish society as well (see Englund 1989, Noldus 2002, 2005, Nováky 1993). Cities like Amsterdam, Stockholm, Lisbon and other metropolises all compressed their own versions of urbanism and commerce. The fluits, though, are the ‘same objects’ that moved between these ports, hence the title ‘Urbanism under Sail’. How were they perceived in their different ports? What did they do to the societies, towns, harbours and municipalities into which they sailed and were moored?

The study is grounded upon the recognition that human life and society as a whole is dependent on the things and other non-human actors

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in it. Despite claims that Actor-Network-Theory, or ANT, and pheno- menology are sometimes argued to be irreconcilable (see discussion with Dolwick 2009, Latour 2005, Riis 2008, Olsen 2010:13,73f) references to both schools of thought will appear as guides along the way.

The thesis is written from a Swedish vantage point, which may be worth pointing out as the fluit was originally developed in, and is associated with, the Dutch Republic. The thesis does not include any previously unpublished archival records from either Sweden or the Netherlands. As mentioned already, there are certainly historians better suited for such tasks.

My hope is that it will show that shipwrecks can reveal aspects of past societies that are not directly accessible through other sources. And, that wrecks are valuable resources worthy of study even if there are no historical documents relating to that specific vessel.

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2. Historical archaeology and the Baltic Sea

As mentioned above, the conditions for preservation of shipwrecks are favourable in the brackish water of the Baltic Sea. Nowhere else are there so many well-preserved early modern wrecks. With this in mind it is somewhat puzzling that there have not been more attempts to undertake practical archaeological fieldwork aiming to record these remains.

Whereas raised artefacts, guns and ship timbers have been used as illustrations for texts, the still standing ship-structures, the really unique aspect of these wrecks, have attracted surprisingly little attention.

The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the kinds of surveys that, nevertheless, have been conducted in the past. The account does not aspire to be complete. It is rather an attempt to assess how previous wreck-researchers have used the archaeological potential of shipwrecks. The account is divided into two sections. The first section aims to sort out the relation between archaeology and shipwrecks on the one hand and written sources and history on the other. The focus here is mainly on research carried out in the Baltic Sea (for a more general overview see for instance Adams 2003:2–46, 2013a:1–51, Bass 2011:3–21).

The second section concerns the archaeology of post-mediaeval wrecks from a naval architectonical point of view. For example, how they are used as sources for studying methods of ship construction and similar. Here, we will have to go on some excursions to other corners of the world.

Important to bear in mind is that the well-preserved wrecks of the Baltic Sea are from a period traditionally studied by historians. Prehistoric ships and boats, either found in graves, carved on stone, or occurring elsewhere, have been studied by archaeologists since the very introduction of the discipline. At the beginning of the twentieth century neither of the sub-disciplines, Historical Archaeology nor Maritime Archaeology, was established in Sweden (cf. Andrén 1997, 1998, Cederlund 1983, 1997, Lovén 1996:11–18, Mogren et al. 2009). A long time elapsed before post-medieval ships achieved the status and treatment in terms of antiquarian protection and archaeological attention as the prehistoric sites. In spite of this, several surveys of medieval and post-

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medieval ships and boats were carried out in Sweden and the Baltic Sea area before the Second World War.

For instance building-antiquarian Tord Nordberg led the survey of the

‘Riddarholmen ship’ in the middle of Stockholm 1930 (Nordberg 1930, 1931, Fischer 1983, Hansson 1960:42ff) and a clinker-built ship, dated to the sixteenth century, was found and surveyed in Västerås in 1935 (Eriksson 2004:15–17).

Perhaps the best known pre-war survey was carried out in Kalmar harbour between 1933 and 1934. An area identical to the medieval harbour was totally emptied from water and no less than 18 hulls and fragments of some additional boats were discovered. These were dated to the medieval period up to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Åkerlund 1951). Harald Åkerlund, a draughtsman, supervised the survey and later he also built scale models for reconstruction purposes. He may be regarded as a forerunner in this field as similar methods are still in use today (Cederlund 1981a, 1983:44, compare Lemée 2006, Steffy 1994), primarily when it comes to studies in boat- and shipbuilding techniques, see below.

The interest in Åkerlund’s boat-surveys appears to have been minimal among contemporary professional archaeologists, which may be regarded to run along the general scope to focus on prehistory. Ruins and similar medieval remains started to achieve antiquarian interest, but from the point of view of architectural and art historians (Andrén 1997, 1998, Lovén 1996:11–18, Mogren et al. 2009).

Even if the post-medieval shipwrecks did not appeal to archaeologists at that time, there were others that did embrace these relics with more enthusiasm. In fact, in the early twentieth century there was generally an increasing interest in maritime and nautical objects; a tendency that may be seen all over the world. A number of old sailing ships, obsolete since the introduction of steam, were rescued and turned into museum ships. Several maritime museums were opened showing objects from naval model chambers (Nordlinder 1988:25–35). Together with paintings of famous sea battles, cannons, sculptures and flag exhibitions were assembled, commem- orating a heroic naval past (cf. Sigmound & Wouter 2007).

In England the Society for Nautical Research was founded in 1911, encouraging research into seafaring and shipbuilding. Their journal Mariner’s Mirror has published many articles concerning wrecks of post-

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2 . H I S T O R I C A L A R C H A E O L O G Y A N D T H E B A L T I C S E A

medieval ships (for an overview, see Mc Grail 2011:37–62), written by authors from several nations, including Sweden.

Figure 2.1: Director of ‘Olschanski’s Salvage and Diving Enterprises on Sunken Ships’

Leonard Olschanski (1882–1943) to the left and Commanding Officer Lenny Stackell (1875–1957) to the right, posing together with a raised iron cannon and other objects recovered from Riksäpplet, sunk in 1676. The picture was taken in 1921 on deck of the salvage vessel Sigrid (SMM Fo86859C).

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Several salvage operations on early modern warships had already been carried out in Sweden by the late nineteenth century. Artefacts, such as cannons, gun-carriages and cannon balls, were either sold to private collectors or included in what was to become the National Maritime Museum. An early example of the salvage operations is the work carried out on Riksäpplet (1676). In 1868 three iron guns and an anchor was raised from the wreck (Cederlund 1983:39). At the beginning of the following century many similar operations were carried out. The practical salvage work was carried out by commercial diving companies but was supervised by naval officers with an interest in history. For instance Commanding Officer, marine painter and naval historian Jacob Hägg (1839–1931) was involved in the salvage work carried out at the Danish ship Enigheden (1979) in 1909. Another naval officer, Lenny Stackell (1876–1957), was involved in the salvage of Riksäpplet in the 1920s (Fig.

2.1). The practical underwater work was carried out by the salvage company Olschanski, and the purpose was to recover black oak, which was a popular material for manufacturing furniture (Cederlund 1983:38, 1997, 2006, 2012).

The raised artefacts were either sold to private collectors or to what later became museums. The cannon balls, deadeyes, gun carriages and similar were used as illustrations for the grand narrative of the Swedish Navy in exhibitions as well as publications. Among the latter the substantial publication Svenska flottans historia (History of the Swedish Navy) consisting of three volumes, each over 500 pages long, has a prominent position. It is richly illustrated with preserved drawings, paintings and ship-models, alongside photos of various artefacts, blocks and deadeyes, guns and ammunition raised from sunken naval ships.

From an archaeological point of view, it is important to note that the artefacts are illustrations, a material curiosity, to confirm an already existing story written on the basis of historical sources, one that essentially could be told without the things (cf. Lybeck 1942).

Among the pioneer investigations on early modern wrecks in Sweden one must mention Commanding Officer Carl Ekman as he is sometimes referred to as an early underwater archaeologist. Most notably he sur- veyed the remains of Swedish sixteenth-century man-of-war Elefanten (the Elephant), between the years 1933 and 1939, and employed several innovative methods during fieldwork (Adams 2003:3, 2013a:3, 87–99, Gould 2000:234f). Ekman saw great potential in the study of wrecks,

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possibilities beyond the mere tautological and illustrative role they were given by his contemporary researchers in the field. Perhaps the most notable expression of this is the fact that his fieldwork included a not insignificant amount of recording under water (cf. ibid., also Cederlund 1983:188–200, Ekman 1934:6, 1942:89–98).

To sum up there existed some researchers who had an interest in and knew a great deal about the terminology of rigs, construction of hulls, names of various ship-types and similar by the mid twentieth century.

These were modellers, naval officers, marine painters, retired seamen and others – not archaeologists. Their prime source material consisted of preserved models, paintings as well as the few historical ships that were still afloat or towed into dry-docks as museum ships. To some extent, remains of sunken ships were taken into account, as Ekman and Åkerlund did with the Elefanten and Kalmar surveys. The common practice however was to use raised effects from sunken ships as illustrations and to add a little extra flavouring to historical sources. The story itself was told on the basis of written texts and to a large extent centred on the glorious deeds of the navy.

After the Second World War the clearance, reconstruction and rebuilding of the demolished cities of Europe was an important factor in the evolution of historical archaeologies in general (Andrén 1997:41, 1998:31ff, Larsson 2009:147–160). The study of post-medieval ships was no exception. For instance, the outspoken purpose of the Centralne Muzeum Morskie (CMM) situated in Gdansk, Poland was to salvage artefacts from the sea as a way to redress the losses of material cultural heritage sustained during the War. Most historic districts in Poland’s coastal towns and cities were reduced to ruins. Sunken ships were used to enrich museum collections with valuable new artefact assemblages (Ossowski 2008:35, 1985:421–435). In a similar way the land reclamation projects in the Netherlands, from 1930s onwards, have revealed several hundreds of shipwrecks, dated from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries (cf. Hocker & Vlierman 1996, Maarleveld & Van Ginkel 1990, Oosting 1991, Oosting & Van Holk 1994, Vlierman 1997a, 1997b, 2003:44–48).

The post-war period saw another important factor in the evolution of the study of wrecks, namely the development of the modern, self- contained diving equipment. In the late 1950s Jacques Cousteau (a French naval officer this time!) and his Undersea Research group excavated a

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wreck outside Marseilles using the new aqualung he had developed together with engineer Emile Cagnan (Adams 2003:3, Bass 1966:125, 2011:5f). Even if the techniques used were by no means up to archaeological standards, Cousteau’s excavation, but most notably, his popular films and books regarding the exploration of the underwater world, provided a consciousness about ‘its treasures’ in a sphere that stretched far beyond archaeology.

But there were archaeological initiatives to follow. In 1960 American archaeologist George Bass and a team excavated a wreck at Cape Galedonia outside Greece. The site, located at 30 m deep, was surveyed according to archaeological standards. When Bass recruited his team, he sought archaeological skills rather than diving skills. Bass thought that it was easier to teach someone with professional skills to dive than the other way around (Adams 2003:4, Bass 1966:125, Muckelroy 1978:15). I think that the fact that they were surveying a prehistoric site was of prime importance for Bass’ decision to employ archaeologists rather than divers.

This was classical archaeology carried out under water. To a large extent, the topics discussed from the results of these surveys revolve around trade, influences and connections across the Mediterranean (see Bass et al. 1972), but also, which we have reason to get back to, ship construction.

The 1960s were the decennium when the potential of underwater archaeology was realized internationally, and on a large scale. In addition to the project mentioned there were several other notable projects formed around recent discoveries. For example, the cog in Bremerhaven, excavated and salvaged in its entirety in 1962 (Ellmers 1994:29–46), and the Viking ships discovered in Roskilde Denmark 1957–62 (Olsen &

Crumlin-Pedersen 1978, Crumlin-Pedersen & Olsen 2002).

Vasa and Riks-Wasa

Here one cannot avoid mentioning the relocation and salvaging of Vasa (1628). The prelude to this project may be traced in the pre-War salvage operations on sunken warships described above. These were continued after the War as the navy conducted their diving training at the sites of famous naval ships. For instance the Riksäpplet site was revisited (Hamilton 1957:163–183). The individuals initially involved in salvaging Vasa were mariners not archaeologists.

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Figure2.2: In the 1960s archaeology was still more or lesssynonymous with the study of prehistory. The picture shows a commercial salvage company demolishing the remains of the Riks-Wasa in 1967 (SMM, Fo 1449AB).

One important person who engaged in the post-medieval shipwrecks in Sweden, after the Second World War, was engineer Anders Franzén (1918–1993) (see Cederlund & Hocker 2006:140ff). Franzén was involved in the diving and salvage operations at the Riksäpplet and Gröne Jägaren (1676) sites in the 1950s, and had formulated a research programme consisting of 12 wrecks that he regarded of prime interest. All twelve were warships. Franzén was in fact quite extraordinary in his disinterest in merchant vessels. Among the reasons he mentions is that merchant ships

‘primarily consist of their cargo’, but also that the captains were illiterate (Franzén 1981:8ff, 1982:6–9, 1985:15, my translation). According to this perspective the potential of a wreck is always limited as no more than an illustration to a history told from texts. The Vasa project started out as an

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event aiming to illustrate the grand narrative of a period of great power in Sweden and later evolved into an archaeological project (cf. Cederlund 1994, 1997, 2006).

The uncertainty that still prevailed in the 1960s regarding the archaeological potential of post-medieval shipwrecks is illustrated by a fascinating paradox. While the Vasa (1628) was raised, conserved and put on display as a national icon, her precursor, known as Riks-Wasa, built in 1599 and sunk in 1623, was blown up and salvaged in pieces (Fig. 2.2).

The work was carried out by a private company making money out of trade in black oak. Riks-Wasa was the last wreck to meet this fate as the National Heritage Act was extended in 1967, so that shipwrecks, if an estimated 100 years had passed since wreckage, achieved legal protection (Arnshav 2011:39ff, Cederlund 1983:224–225).

A maritime perspective

Parallel to the introduction of juridical antiquarian protection of post- medieval shipwrecks, academic research into different maritime fields developed. Perhaps this should be seen as a response to the spontaneously grown interest in old ships and maritime matters in general among museum institutions, initiated by naval officers, retired captains, model builders and similar ship-enthusiasts. Important for this profes- sionalization has been the introduction of The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology and Underwater Exploration (IJNA) (from 1984, renamed International Journal of Nautical Archaeology) in 1972 and the International Symposium on Boat and Ship Archaeology (ISBSA) held every third year since 1976.

In the Baltic Sea area, The Scandinavian Maritime History working group was initiated in 1966 and consisted of researchers from several disciplines. In the anthology Ships and Shipyards, Sailors and Fishermen, which formed a kind of manifesto, it is argued that maritime ethnology and its associated disciplines, such as archaeology, may provide a vernacular perspective challenging traditional history writing, which tends to be focused on wars and kings (Hasslöf 1970:9–20, Hasslöf 1972:9–19). Maritime material culture provided something beyond mere confirmation of ‘normative’ written accounts and could be used to study the broad illiterate masses of people. It was thus an approach that stood

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in contrast to the naval perspective as articulated by for instance Anders Franzén as cited above (also Franzén 1981:8ff, 1982:6–9, 1985:15).

With the Act of 1967 old wrecks also became a concern for the antiquarian authorities instead of being an activity that consisted of mere salvaging, initially carried out by the divers of the navy, and later on, in reduced scale, by recreational divers (Arnshav 2011:39–44). With the boom of recreational diving in the Baltic Sea, new discoveries of old wrecks were reported to the SMM (Swedish National Maritime Museum), who had become the preferred authority in matters that concerned monuments under water. In order to build up knowledge, and to develop methods, the SMM conducted underwater fieldworks on some selected wrecks (cf. Cederlund 1981b, 1982b, Kaijser 1981, 1983). The ‘Jutholmen Wreck’, which we will return to in chapter 4, was one of those.

Carl Olof Cederlund’s dissertation entitled The Old Wrecks of the Baltic Sea (1983) aimed to lay the foundation for the archaeology of the well-preserved post-medieval wrecks. In an attempt to structure the possibilities as well as the informative qualities and archaeological potential he proposes a standard for wreck investigations. One point is underlined, and this is the matter of identification (Cederlund 1983, also 1997:126). Archaeological fieldwork, to some extent, became a matter of collecting clues that would enable the identification of the ship’s original identity in written sources. ‘The identity of a ship is like the key that unlocks this information by linking a given ship together with a particular historical circumstance’ (Cederlund 1983:69).

While the identities of sunken warships tended to remain in memory, the names of smaller craft, but also large merchant and transport vessels, tended to be long forgotten (ibid., also Ahlström 1995:24ff, 1997:30ff).

The search for the lost identities of the sunken merchant ships was considered as a way to go beyond traditional history writing about wars and the kings (cf. Cederlund 1982a, 1983, 1997, compare Franzén 1982).

The study of merchant ships, it was argued, was a way to reveal the history of ordinary people and the wordless illiterate masses (see discussion with Little 1994, Moreland 2001:94). From the 1970s up until the 1990s fieldwork under water that aimed to collect information leading to the identification of shipwrecks was carried out by private individuals, most notably recreational divers supervised by the SMM and Stockholm University (SU) (Cederlund 1983:49). An important actor for the development of maritime archaeology in Sweden was – and still is – the

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Swedish Maritime Archaeological Society (Sw. Marinarkeologiska Sällskapet, or MAS), founded in 1978, where semi-professional diving archaeologists are organized on a non-profit basis.

The conditions for preservation are more or less the same on the east coast of the Baltic, and several wrecks were investigated in Finnish waters in the same way and with similar objectives as in Sweden, from the 1950s and onwards (cf. Ahlström 1995:132–165, 1997:157–198, Nurmio- Lahdenmäki 2006). Finnish historian Christian Ahlström picked up the task defined by Cederlund and developed methods for identifying anonymous shipwrecks, in Swedish and Finnish waters, through search- ing among documents in archives. Thanks to his careful work several wrecks of merchant ships were identified. We will return to one of these in chapter 5, the large fluit Anna Maria, sunk in 1709. Ahlström wrote his dissertation on the subject (1995, translated into English 1997) and together with Cederlund’s dissertation these books formed a kind of research programme for Baltic Sea ship archaeology. Several wrecks were examined according to the same premises, and some of these shipwrecks did get their original names back (Ahlström 1995, 1997, Cederlund 1997, Eriksson 1995, Rönnby 2003:123–130, Rönnby & Adams 1994).

Between artefact and text

To recapitulate: the early surveys of naval vessels derived from an interest in naval history. Naval officers raised objects from the seabed to remember a history told by historical documents. The 1960s and ‘70s witnessed a reaction to these grand historical narratives that focused on wars, kings and ‘the great men’. Instead, the new focus was on the anonymous wrecks of merchant ships. Through identifying these ships, other activities and categories of people from the past became visible.

But even if the categories of ships differed, and even if focus was on merchants rather than the king and nobility, on trading routes rather than naval and famous battles, the two schools of Baltic Sea wreck research had one particular thing in common, namely how they handled written sources in relation to the material remains. Irrespective of whether the story is known beforehand, as with a celebrated naval ship, or if the research started with an unknown wreck of a merchant vessel, written sources were used to explain the mute material remains at the seabed (for a similar discussion see Harpster 2013:588–622).

Urbanism Under Sail: An Archaeology of Fluit Ships in Early Modern Everyday Life

Urbanism Under Sail

Niklas Eriksson

Urbanism Under Sail

Niklas Eriksson

Abstract

Acknowledgments

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Historical archaeology and the Baltic Sea